One Nation Under God

Before I begin this blog post I will say that it may get a bit political. I have had these thoughts running through my head for days and have tried to organize them in a way that allows me to speak my voice without being defensive. This is my expression of those thoughts.

The first thing that I will address is that I am about to bring a beautiful little baby into this crazy and dangerous world. That alone scares me more than anything else. My husband and I will have the challenge of raising my baby boy to reject the expectations placed on young boys; expectations like being a "tough manly man" and "boys don't show emotions." My boy will never hear the expression "boys will be boys" come out of my mouth. My goal is to raise my son to be respectful to all, to hate none, and to love whole heatedly. He will be raised to trust in God and to never treat a girl or woman as less than. There are a lot of obstacles that my husband and I will fight against while bringing our son up in this broken world.

Turning to the current events happening in our world, it makes me sick to see what is happening. Any of the supremacy groups are not created out of good. They are created out of hate for someone else. It astounds me that these groups are still around in our year of 2017. I do not see the Black Lives Matter group as a hate or supremacy group. They were created to acknowledge and make public the injustice they face in their lives and to bring about change of good. I do acknowledge that there are extremists within this group and those bad seeds give the group as a whole a bad name. No one should ever use hate or violence to promote or further their agenda. Any person or group who does this receives no support from me.

There's the issue of the taking down of statues around the country of confederate personnel. I believe that taking down these statues is wrong. They have been standing for years without any complaints. I don't understand what people are so scared about in regards to these statues and monuments. They are not going to come alive and start the Civil War again. The people of today are doing a pretty good job of doing that themselves. The statues are a part of history. They stand as a reminder of what happened in our dark past and what we never want to happen again. The people that these statues represent may have fought on the wrong side of history and fought for a cause that we know was wrong, but that doesn't mean they were bad people. They lived in a different time. They fought for a cause that they believed was worthy, for a way of life that they grew up with. We now know that way of life caused unimaginable pain for an entire group of people and that part of history should never be repeated again, but those generals and figures weren't necessarily evil or bad. Their actions and the things they stood for, yes.

My heart is heavy and distressed. This great nation and country that I love is being torn apart and is at war within itself. I love learning about the Civil War from both sides, but it is not something that I would like to see repeated. I can only hope and pray for peace and acceptance of all people, regardless of race, religion, or nationality. I grew up loving and accepting all. My only wish is that my children will grow up with the same love and acceptance. I wish for peace in the world, but that peace first needs to be found within our own great nation that stands under God.

All You Need is a Bit of Spirit!

For those who know me well, they all know about my (not so) little baby Spirit. He's a Siberian Husky that we got from a rescue shelter at the beginning of November 2016. He's the light of my life and my little toddler puppy. He's currently 1 year and 8 months old.

When we first got him, we had a lot of problems. His first family had him as a puppy. They also had another dog that was older. They claimed that Spirit (then named Lucian) was aggressive and was mean to the older dog. He was a puppy!! It's almost like they had never experienced a puppy before. This family decided to take Spirit to the vet to have him put down. The vet, bless his heart, couldn't possibly put down a puppy. So he called a lady who rescues huskies and husky mixes. She took him in, changed his name to Spirit, and a few months later we adopted him.

I don't think his first family did any sort of training with him at all. We had to not only train him to fit in our family, but we also had to fix the problem behaviors that he had from his previous family. Neither my husband or I had ever had a dog before. Spirit is the first dog for both of us. We had no idea how to train Spirit or how to tell what he wanted. We quickly learned that he hated being in a crate. So we nixed that idea and let him have free rein in the house. After he destroyed a lot of things from the bedroom, we started blocking it off. Being a husky, he's not only mischievous, but he's also really smart! He would figure out how to jump over any of the barriers that we put up. We soon learned that by standing the crate up, we could block off the bedroom and Spirit wouldn't jump over it.

It has taken quite a while, but we figured out how to "doggo proof" the house when we leave and how to tell what he wants. He recently did a beginners obedience class and graduated. We want to continue having him in training. It is good for him to be around other dogs so he can learn to socialize with other animals. Spirit is our baby and we both love him more than we thought possible. He has the biggest heart. He loves everyone and everything. He still has all the crazy puppy energy and the toddler mentality.

When people first meet him, they can be a bit intimidated. He likes to jump up and give kisses. It makes me angry when people who don't know him well, judge him. Those who have been a part of his journey since the beginning know how far he has come and how hard we have worked with him. He is a sweetheart and a big lover. His happy doggo smile and silly derpy face can melt hearts. He's even won over some people who claim they're not dog people. Is he perfect? No, but what animal or person, for that matter, is? He still has a lot of growing to do, but for now, I am very happy with his progress. I can't imagine what my life would be like without my husky!!